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Apple's 2012 first-generation 7.9-inch iPad mini, with 16, 32, or 64 GB of storage and an A5 processor.

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iPad Mini Home Button Not Working After Digitizer Replacement

Replaced an iPad Mini digitizer today and all seemed to be ok prior to putting the actual digitizer on.

But after putting the digitizer back on, the home button does not work, or to be more accurate, it always thinks it's pressed.

We tested the home button prior to putting the digitizer back on and it was working. For some reason the iPad thinks the home button is always depressed (if you press the power button, it takes a snapshot).

Any ideas?

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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The problem was there was a little support item sitting underneath which was out of place everytime we put the digitizer back on. Managed to eventually get it right. My only advice is to keep trying to get the alignment right.

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Hi Adam,

I'm having the same problem. Can you describe in detail what the support item looks like? Do you have any pictures of it? I attempted a few things but no luck so far.

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HERE IS THE LOGICAL ANSWER

After reading through all post I still could not find the right fix, A lot of the post on the right track but explaining it kind of wrong, The easiest solution Is to go back to the old screen at the bottom where the Home button is located, There you will see two pieces of fabric tape, The one closest to the home button will be layered over a clear piece of tape, try to remove them together, use x acto knife to lift up corner, then a good pair of tweezers to peel it off.

Perform the same procedure To the fabric tape to the left, Then place both pieces down on your new digitizer, In the same place that they were in on the original. This should solve your problem 100%. iPad Mini is a very very difficult repair, And I have done many, There's always a problem I learn every day.......Cheers!

*Attached is a image of the area you need to be working in, I had already removed the fabric tape before posting this, but I have outlined the areas as best as I could*

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5 Comments:

thank you !! this thing was driving me crazy

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Hey Andrew, the two long thin padding with the funny cloth like surface, At the bottom of the iPad mini, near the bottom of the LCD, peel them off Completely. This should fix the crazy pad reaction when it's all sealed up.

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All hail gtechirepair! I shall name my first born after you no matter how much she opposes the name change!

The tape is CLEAR, look closely folks! Only took me 10 hours to spot it lol

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My replacement digitizer includes a yellow tape that covers the connectors at the bottom. Should I remove the tape and use the pieces of fabric tape instead?

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Always works, Thank you

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Please refer to these following reference pictures I've created for you guys a while back:

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Paolo--

Check to see if you have created a kink in the digitizer flex cable---this has happened to me especially with some of the lower quality colored mini digitizers out there when I've had to lift the screen a few times to try and solve taping issues.

The digitizer cable must loop toward the lcd.

jessa

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Thank you very much Jessa for the reply!

the owner of the 'ipad said he stopped going crazy .....

just as well, because frankly I do not want to lose more time with the iPad mini.

The digitizer cable should be folded correctly ..... but in fact the glass was mildly raised above the cable.

I think this is the first and last ipad mini i fix!!

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Thank you so much. this was my problem. I had to peel the ribbon cable off the digitizer just a little to make it work properly. Saved my sanity. Thanks!

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---Solution for my iPad Mini Home Button Problem ----

This is for those who replace their screens with glasses including preinstalled home Button and IC.

I noticed by compairing the defective and the new part that the housing of the home Button of the replacement part is a bit thicker than the original one.

That was the trick for me. Place just 2 cusions beside the home button hole and the thicker

housing cant activate the button anymore. This trick worked out for me. Glass from the outside is still OK.

I think its just a matter of 1mm.

Please check the photo.

Hope that could help u.

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Hey Andrew, yes I've encountered this problem. The solution is to put tape from one end of the LCD to the other at the bottom. So basically from left to right. Obviously don't cover the LCD. Just the bottom part only. If you need more assistance let me know. My website is my user name nd email is lited there.

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Any particular tape?

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Just read a blog http://www.ecever.com/blog/ipad-mini-hom...

I managed to fix iPad Mini Home button not work problem from it's instructions!Just as first answer said,you should transfer the tapes to the new digitizer.

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This worked perfect! Drove me bonkers half the night.

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FYI, I can vouch for the fix, all you have to do is use electrical tape, doesn't have to be anything special, standard electrical tape works fine to cover up the copper connectors to prevent the ghost clicks.

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Looking at the home button pins the pin closer to the home button well call this pin #1

Pin #1 and #3 are ground pins.

Pin#2 is the home button pin (if you press the home button basically you're connection pin #2 with #1/3)

Make sure that pin #2 has no continuity with #1/3 unless you press the home button.

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I had this problem and managed to fix it. The issue seemed to be with a set of contacts on the new digitizer, they had a piece of the orangey tape over them, which i removed. Do not remove this. On the original, broken one, it had black fabric tape over the copper contacts. The contacts are to the left of the home button when looking at the back of the digitizer, they are both on the home button ribbon cable, one is rectangular and one is square. I put standard electrical tape over both of these and it appears to have fixed the problem.

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I would say its a defective home flex cable if it would not work outside of the case.

It even works if its almost in the ipad mini housing, but as soon as the glass sits in, homebutton goes crazy. Tried the electrical tape hint didnt work out for me.

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Maybe my tape gave it just enough lift for mine to work, the pic attached is the old one with the black fabric tape in the position i tried to emulate, scuse the cat hair, i just dug it out of the bin!

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I had the same problem with the home button going crazy after replacement and tried all the above with no success. What finally fixed the problem for me is removing the two long adhesive strips holding the lcd. Once I removed them and left all the tape mentioned above it worked perfectly. I hope this helps some of you.

Update

Andrew, why don't you remove the two adhesive stripes holding the lcd then trying it. That might do the trick for you.

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I have a similar problem but not the home button but the digitizer itself...

When out of the iPad everything works as it should but when I place the digitizer back in the case it acts as if someone was touching the screen in random places.

I have it down to the bottom left corner of the iPad mini. When I press that corner in it goes crazy but if I stick a pick or a piece of paper in that corner to elevate it it works fine. I don't think I can use it with a guitar pick sticking out of it...

any suggestions?

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I finally got it as well. The rectangle tape needs to cover most of that flex cable I literally had to work on it for 3-4 hours. Any questions email me

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Hi everyone. I've found what's going on!!

Turns out, there is a small strip of black tape in between the glass and frame that keep the digitizer from "touching" itself and activating home button + digitizer randomly.

The fix for this is simple. Just put a thin strip of tape in between the glass and it's flex cables. I suggest Kapton tape since it's adhesive is light and wont damage the flex, as well as being thin, or just carefully transfer the thin tape strip from the original digitizer to the replacement. Be sure not to cover the Digitizer Adhesive of course!

Here are some pictures for you guys!

http://imgur.com/a/mwTJa

asdflkajsd;fs

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my digi comes with the kapton tape as well. do you remove all of that? I recently pulled all of the yellow tape off and transferred the black anti-static tape from the old digi to the new one. When I laid it down the lock button wouldn't work. When I pulled it back up it was fine but when I put it back down again it was ghost clicking and moving everywhere. I dont know if it was how I had the ribbon laying or what exactly it is. The ribbon needs to be pushed forward before sealing correct?

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So to visually display GtechiRepair's comment which was very useful to me by the way:

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These black tapes and the clear tape you peal off here are positioned on the red squares here:

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can anybody tell me the purpose of the two small pieces of magnet stuck to the bottom of the digitizer?

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activating and deactivating the screen lock when ipad is in a case.

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I added another layer of adhesive as the ones with most are a bit more thin, also seating the glass a bit less flush. Now the button works. 3 hours later.

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FYI:

This soloution does NOT always work.. I just had my second shipment of mini digitizers, which has serious problems with the HB flex assembly.. First one out of the box activated the HB switch randomly, the other was constantly activated.. even BEFORE touching the frame/housing

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I've noticed lately (summer 2014) from two different suppliers that the same black iPad mini digitizer assemblies are taped a little bit wrong---if you don't adjust the tape it will have these issues. The white ones are fine.

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Once again a temperamental apple product.

Having said that, since we pay extra for the screens with HB etc installed you would have thought that the manufacturers would have put a measly bit of tape on.

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the original screens are taped. it's the cheap copy screens that are the problem, but even so, most of them are taped now---just not taped correctly ;)

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I had the same problem when installing a new digitizer (black) with home button preinstalled.

The home button was working outside the ipad, but not working when fully installed. Deinstalled the digitizer and put kapton tape on the home button flex cable.

After that everything was working fine.

See picture below where I put the kapton tape.

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just went through the same thing on an ipad mini, their should be tape keeping the connections to the home button from shorting to the frame. they were exposed to le left side of my home button. covered them with tape and button works fine

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Hi all, I followed the instruction here on ifixit.com and I can tell you that you guys are doing an amazing job. After trying to replace he digitizer for the first time and rushed the LCD removal a little bit, resulted in a cracked LCD. I ordered another one and went through complete tear down here and finally my iPad is fixed.

But, when I tested a few apps like Paper by 53, Adobe Photoshop and Sketch I figured out that I'm not able to draw a single line on this digitizer. Digitizer would be irresponsive even in some games, where you have to "pick up" one object and slide it to the other part of the screen it just loses it. That's how I found out that my digitizer which came from Amazon is far from being an OEM part. Also the screen seems kind of yellowish compared to the original one and the home button fell in after the installation. Although I don't have any problems with the home button I'd replace this fake screen as soon as possible cause it's annoying.

I'm using my iPad mini Retina for drawing and sketching, since I'm working in graphic design, but now I can't find no use for it except for reading.

Please if you guys let me know where could I order an original quality digitizer..if that's even possible? I'd really appreciate it.

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Awesome solution GtechiRepair ! solved my problem like breeze. Thank you very very much!

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Another one to keep an eye out which can be missed, is the contacts by the actual connector. Original apple digitiser will have these covered also. Just transfer any piece of tape thats on the old on to the new, even the ones by the snap connection. Since this, I've "touch wood" never had a problem since. I used to dread an ipad mini everytime! Now the only thing that I hate is getting that lcd unstuck!!!!!

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The ipad mini i was just working on would keep activating the home button and kept going to siri.. I first tried to cover the contacts on the home button flex like others in this post suggested with no luck. I also used some doubled sided 3m tape to create cushions on both sides of the home button (leaving the backing on the tape to give a little more thickness) to raise the button up from the frame a little to give it a little relief. This solved by problem. Not sure if it was just the extra cushioning i added or if it was a combination of cushion and covering those exposed contacts. After changing 3 digitizers and getting the same problem everytime im just happen to close out that ticket and move on..

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So i have ipad a1432 (3 of them) to be repaired and all with yellow kapton tape on them

so do i just leave the kapton tape as-is?

Is it really that simple????

leave everything as-is????

just simply install the connector and go???

help!

http://s21.postimg.org/rsdmsbjon/image.j...

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Yeah you should be fine, I prefer it when I see these types arrive. As long as the contacts are covered, and you dont pinch the cable. You should be fine.

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and what is the name of the black tar-like glue under the glass that comes already inside of the ipad?

is there something similar that i could buy at like a home depot?

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most replacement screens come with the black adhesive preinstalled. Most repair shops use "red tape" adhesive when they use a third party adhesive for screen replacements.

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thank you....

the black adhesive that is pre-installed, what is the name of that? what is it? what substance is that?

i would like to get some of that, just to have.....

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Hi Guys,

Thanks so much for this information.

I replaced my ipad mini digitizer with success because of this.

Few issues that I ran into:

1. Incorrect Digitizer. I had the one without the IC and home button.

After getting the correct Screen

2. Powering on LCD gave dim screen. Could see stuff but no back light

- Disconnect & reconnect battery fixed this.

3. Power button sitting faulty. Depressing too deep

- Sticking the old rubber onto the new button helped

- Sticking down the Digitizer to the frame (above the button)... Was not stuck properly onto the frame.

4. Digitizer malfunction. Left, Right, or slow response

- Sticking on the tape from the old screen ribbons. (Button ribbon tapes - 2 pieces). and the very long piece which goes at the bottom of the screen / above the button ribbon ... this stopped the malfunction.

Thanks again people.

Regards

Christopher

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What do you mean with item 3, the "power button" ? The power button is not replaced in the front glass/digitizer kit.

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I've done a screen replacement and the home button does not work. Bought another screen replacement and still the home button doesn't work. I've covered all the contacts with tape as instructed but even with the screen outside of the case still no joy. As I've tried two screen from two different sources, have covered all of the contacts and it doesn't work outside of the case I'm assuming I have a different problem to contacts being shorted or faulty buttons. Can anyone help? PS the home button worked on the original screen before I took the screen off.

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Probably damage to the digitizer connector--look for a missing gold pin. Otherwise you have knocked off a tiny required resistor next to the connector. Show me a picture of your digitizer connector and I can confirm for you

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same here, any idea?

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I have found that the contacts on the connector on the main board itself break. Make sure upon disassembling that these are not broken. You will have a dead home button, or dead zones on the digitizer. I submitted a picture.... but I don't see it showing up.

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Adam Ayub will be eternally grateful.
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